Official Sager NP8130/Clevo P151HM1 Owners Lounge

Hey guys, just ordered the NP8130 from Powernotebooks and I'm wondering if there are any good tips in regards to conserving battery life and keeping the machine running well. The specs are below.

15.6” Full HD 16:9 Wide screen (1920x1080) LED-Backlit Display with Matte Finished Screen
nVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M 192bit w/1.5GB GDDR5
Intel® Core™ i7-2720QM (2.2~3.3GHz, 45W)
Sager Thermal Compound
8GB RAM
500GB SATA II 3GB/s 7,200RPM Hard Drive
6x Blu-Ray Reader/8x Super Multi Combo Drive
Built-in Bigfoot Networks Killer™ Wireless-N 1102

 

Windows Power Saver mode with the CPU set to throttle, backlight turned down a bit, and (if you can manage it) WiFi turned off when not in use. Obviously, running games or other high drain programs will still kill the battery life compared to web browsing.

For general maintenance, blow the vents out every so often to keep it running cool and a case of some sort is always a good option to prevent any physical damage.

 

Yeah. I got ahold of my reseller (Malibal) and they had me send them some logs. In the end though they want me to RMA it. The logs only really show my laptop crashing over and over and over, but doesn't really give much reason why.

So I decided to try to troubleshoot it myself with all the information in this thread. Overall though, nothing has resolved it. No drivers updates/rollbacks, bios/ec updates, registry edits did anything. Well, I take that back, the latest and greatest bois/ec updates made the laptop and more unstable. But as it stands right now with the best combination of my efforts, I can play a game with the laptop graphically "coughing" every 10 minutes or so. I can sometimes watch videos... 1 out of 4 times it won't crash to the point of rebooting. lol

All and all, I seriously think I have some bad hardware. I sent out an email friday to rma it back to them for replacement/repair/exchange whatever. Still waiting for a reply. It's the weekend though, so I really don't expect a word until monday.

I will have to say though, if the laptop was actually useable, I rather think I would like it. The screen it absolutely gorgeous, excellent stats for the price. Keyboard was better than expected, which is good for me as I type much. Really the only thing I didn't like about it was the touchpad. It's not that it doesn't work, it just leaves much to be desired. But I'm coming from a Macbook, which has one of the best gesture touchpad on the market. So... I may be a bit biased.

I guess what I'm saying is, for those who are reading this thread and are on the fence on buying one of these, don't be deterred. While a few laptops definitely have some problems (like mine) on the whole the majority are fine. I am still very much looking forward to seeing what it can do whenever I have one that works!

Will keep you guys updated on my progress, and again. If anyone has something some other idea while I still have this laptop in my hands. Feel free to suggest!

 

Awww that sucks, I'm sorry to hear that you got a lemon. It doesn't happen very often, but hopefully you'll get a new system that would work perfectly for you.

Mr. Mysterious

 

It sounds like you've tried everything short of new hardware anyway. You're right, you will probably hear back from support on Monday though due to it being the weekend. Let me know if you haven't and I'll make sure you get taken care of.

You haven't tried doing an OS wipe/install have you? Or simply running on a bootable linux Live CD? It might help you narrow it down to an OS/software problem or hardware one.

 

Here's my impression of my new NP8130:

Chassis: I've heard a few complaints about the the chassis, but I thought it was reasonably rigid, though I haven't the guts to stress test it. The frame of the screen gets dirty with fingerprints and dust pretty quickly. I would also have liked a locking mechanism to keep the laptop closed while in my bag, because I'm paranoid about having a pencil or something get between the keyboard and the screen. I like the nondescript look of the whole laptop.

Keyboard: The keyboard is more or less what I expected it to be. I didn't find fault with the way the arrow keys intrude into the numpad, as some have. I felt that the ordering of the function keys could have been better, since Sleep is right between Mute and Volume Down, and I've hit it by accident while watching a movie in the dark several times. A backlit keyboard also would have been nice, but it's hardly a standard feature for laptops. Some of my keys started squeaking a week after I got the laptop, but that might be specific to my order.

Touchpad: highly customizable and responsive. No complaints here.

Screen: Plays high def movies nicely. 1920 x 1080 means lots of real estate for web browsing. Mine has a dead pixel, unfortunately, but it's located near the taskbar, so I don't notice it unless I'm looking for it.

Battery: I'd like it to be as good as a Mac Book Pro, but I'm also buying a gaming laptop. Oh well.

Graphics Card: If I didn't care about this, I could have gotten a laptop much cheaper. So all I can say is I got what I paid for. Games run smoothly, as long as I'm using an outlet. On battery power, performance visibly suffers.

Weight: The laptop is heavier than I expected, but once again: gaming laptop.

Fan: I was used to my silent desktop, so the loudness of the fan took a while to get used to. It still takes some immersion out of my gaming experience, especially when I'm in an atmospheric, spooky area, and the fan is whirring like its little metal pants are on fire.

Misc: I mainly use the webcam and mic for video chatting, and the mic records the sound of the keyboard loudly because of its location. The fingerprint reader is an unexpected plus. I didn't think I'd have much use for it, but it turned out to be pretty useful. The power adapter is huge, and can get pretty hot. Come to think of it, the entire laptop gets pretty hot on my lap when I'm gaming.

Drivers and other software: It took me many hours to set up the laptop with all the latest drivers on Sager's website, but I didn't mind too much since I'll only have to do it once. There's a couple of applications on the site, but I'm pretty sure they're not bloatware. Oddly, both Intel My WiFi Technology and Bigfoot Networks Killer Network Manager tells me that network adapter/device is not found. I can get on my wireless network fine, so I don't know why I'm having this problem.

Reseller: Xoticpc took more than a month between getting my order and shipping it out, even after the Intel recall has settled down.

 

I thought about doing a clean wipe again, but honestly, I started having problems on first bootup. I feel very strongly that I have some lemon hardware. Even event logger shows nothing software side causing the freezes/crashes. And the type of crashes I experience are not the usual kind you get with software issues. There is the "drivers stopped responding" error, but I only get that half the time. The other half the crashes are more similar to a hardware over heating. The screen does funky stuff and sometimes windows can recover it, sometimes not. I honestly did think I had overheating issues at first, but I installed nvidiainspector and watched my temps and they are fine. I dunno. I've seriously probably have put into over 100 hours researching my options, trying this, trying that. No go. It's so unreliable I don't even trust it to make this post. lol

But as hinted before, it happens. I just got a bad roll of the dice. On the plus side your team did respond and they're sending me a label to get it shipped to them. Since I'm still in the 30 day time, I might suggest a exchange, or a "guts" swap. I am really looking forward to getting this going, though.

 

Hey, madfable, could you let us know how long it would take, from the time you ship your PC till the time you receive something back? Thanks.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Anybody using Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid drive?
Does it still freeze the laptop?

 

I ordered the laptop with Windows Home Premium, since I don't have a spare windows license. I got the Intel 320 series, 300GB.

 

It was never actually proven that the Momentus XT hybrid drive was a cause of freezes. Some people with it reported issues, but so did some of those without it. Bios and driver updates seemed to have fixed the problem for many, and it doesn't seem to have been limited to a specific piece of hardware.

 

Just did 3dmark06 and got a score of 14446 with latest nvidia driver - is this good? Can't find other peoples on here to compare to. The cpu test was like ultra slow with 1fps is that normal?

 

nevermind I found some of your guys scores which are exactly around mine.

 

Well shoot, I just found out that graduate and professional students can get Windows 7 Professional through my University for $15. My paypal check just cleared, but I haven't gotten any further notification from XoticPC yet. Is it too late to call them and modify the order at this point? It's not like I'm changing the build or anything, just asking them to not install software.

I just knew I'd change my mind about something...

Edit: I just checked the website, and my order is still in phase 1 (order confirmation)

 

I have the momentus and have had no freezing issues. I have played a bunch of demanding games and my 8130 has handled them all like a champ.

The momentus drive has noticeably reduced boot times for software. I experience a very significant difference with things like photochop and games.

 

This seems to be the case.

I uninstalled THX and reinstalled the audio driver and it improved headphone sound quality somewhat. However, its still not as good as other laptops or even smart phones.

This is a bummer, but not a deal killer. Sound is still great through powered speakers and I love everything else about the 8130.

 

I'm guessing the np8150 wouldn't be any different with sound correct?

 

Does anyone else have this little notebook icon in their system tray that for "power conservation modes" - what does this do - I just noticed I've had it on balanced this entire time - does that hinder performance?

 

No it doesn't. It's actually what is the best for me in terms of temperatures. It keeps it cool, but it also allows the CPU to get the intensive stuff when and if it arises.

Keeping it on High Performance mode will keep the temps high and everything on max settings.

Mr. Mysterious

 

It's best to keep it on Power Saver mode. For some reason, Windows 7, unlike Vista can only have two states at a time in the tray icon. Whatever two you used last will be there.

In the tray icon I keep Power Saver and Balanced mode. I mostly use power saver. This laptop is so powerful that even on power saver, it handles everything I throw at it but games.

On the task bar, I created a custom shortcut to activate high performance mode with one click.

 

I was probably going to get this computer aswell as all of you. I was wondering, for those of you that have bought from xoticpc, how has that experience been. I would especially like to hear from those that had to send something back or had issues. So far what I can tell, Xoticpc is a great company

 

It's an excellent reseller, and I'm glad I'm their customer. They were good, able to knock the shipping price off of my PC, quick, kept me updated and all that.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Great, thats what I heard. O and by the way, that was a great review good job.

 

Lol thank you...

I asked a reseller if they were going to come out with a BIOS or a fix that would address the fans cycling issue. Let's see what they're going to respond with...

Mr. Mysterious

 

Will this system be able to upgrade to Ivy Bridge?

 

It's possible:

"To begin with, Ivy Bridge processors are seamlessly compatible with existing LGA1155 platforms, and "Cougar Point" P67, H67, H61, Z68, chipsets, although it will come with its own 7-series chipset. "

However, the 8130/8150's use the HM65 chipset. It's impossible to know for sure until Intel actually releases definite info.

 

Just picked one up from Xotic PC. Special thanks to this forum for having all the awesome info on these laptops...two days ago, I thought Alienware was my best option. Now I've got an i7 2630QM, a GTX 460m, 8 GBs of RAM, a matte screen (thank. god.) and a laptop that doesn't look like a riced out Honda Civic. Thanks all!

 

Sure thing. I received the shipping label from Malibal. I'll probably send it tomorrow. Malibal has a 3day UPS there/back in their warranty, so it won't cost me anything. Woot for that. So 6ish days plus however long it takes them fix it. I'm going to write up all the stuff I've done and tried just so they know.

But in short, yes. I will definitely keep you updated on what they find and when it's sent back and all that. I know after all the hell I've been through it I want to know what was wrong and how it was corrected. It'll bring me peace. lol Hopefully I'll be able to add something to this lengthy post that may help others.

That is such a true statement! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5cSRzZE6Q8

 

NP8150 is identical to NP8130 in terms of motherboard.

So yes, same Realtek ALC892 chip.

As I mentioned, get an external SPDIF/USB audio interface for significantly improved audio quality.

 

Don't know if you noticed or not,

the Realtek Audio Manager now lets you adjust equalizer and environment and such.

 

I can't seem to find an equalizer... Can you point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

EDIT: never mind, found it.

Also, an external device to power headphones sort of defeats the purpose... I am tryin to maintain portability.

 

Since the dawn of time...(ok not really, since laptops became mainstream) there has always been a tradeoff between portability and power. You have to pick your poison.

Mr. Mysterious

 

lol... except every laptop I have ever owned has been perfectly capable of producing quality sound through headphones.

Any kind of external card or headphone amp defeats the purpose of headphones for me.

Again, I think the 8130 is awesome overall, this is just a bit of a bummer is all.

 

Mine's due to arrive tommorrow, and the anticipation is killing me!

I was doing fine until it made it to the US. It took 4 days to go from California to my state, with no status updates in between, just arriving about 50 miles from my house a couple of hours ago. Was starting to get worried that there was no way I'd get it tomorrow!

If only I could reasonably work from home tomorrow so I could tinker with it throughout the day -- but just too much going on at work! :-( Fortunately my wife will be here to sign for it.

I'm just having to make-do with looking up reviews of it and such to tide myself over. How sad is that!?

 

Not acting being like an a**, just some observations over the years,
people say "quality sound", "quality image", etc..etc..

But then what is "quality"? Is there an objective way to measure it? Or is it PURELY subjective?

I often ask people what do they mean by "quality sound", or "quality image", etc..
Most of the time they don't even know, and end up saying the "equalization they get used to."

If it is a subjective issue then why say "quality" when it just means your preference?
If it is an objective issue then why can't those people describe the properties of "quality"?

Just some food for thought.

 

I hear what you are saying about the subjective nature of evaluating sound quality.

But I'm not talking about a subtle difference. It sounds like a home theater with the sub turned off.

Again, not trying to derail the thread - but this is a real issue and kinda lame if you use headphones a lot.

Again, I still fully endorse this machine.

 

It's here! My SSD is finally here!

Mr. Mysterious

 

Its not completely subjective, for instance, the bit-rate of digital audio clearly has a role in determining the accuracy. Similarly, headphones with high power requirements produce noticeably lower quality sound when paired with an amplifier that does not supply enough power (like the one integrated into the laptop).

 

I guess the real question is whether there is anything to be done about this?

 

If the built in hardware does not provide enough bass through the headphone, even with the equalizer maxed, you are stuck with that unless you use an external amplifier or maybe audio through USB or HDMI.

If you output your video and audio through HDMI and then plug in your headphones into that device, what happens?

 

I keep reading about the fan on/off cycle from people on this forum. If this is resolved by a bios update or otherwise, I would definitely like to hear about it. I had a similar problem with my dell latitude years back, and it was super annoying. That was eventually fixed by a bios update, but I don't want to update the bios unless I know it's going to fix the problem.

Edit: How widespread is this problem? Are a lot of people experiencing this?

 

The issue is with the GPU fan. The CPU fan is fine.

It depends on which EC (embedded controller) version your unit ships with. Somewhere in Feb/March a lot of people got units with an EC that almost turned off completely and then started up again at 40° C. It got quite annoying because it would turn off for a few seconds, and then start up again.

The start-stop is something that you always hear and it's annoying.

A new EC was released and I flashed my 8130 and now the fans are always on at a more even level. It's not quiet but at least it doesn't start and stop. Eventually it becomes background noise and you forget about it.

I would still like an improved EC that spins the fans at an even lower level since I think there is room for that. There is no reason why my GPU needs to idle at 32° like it does now.

 

Right. You are talking more technically about audio encoding. (actually audio resolution plays a far more important role in audio quality compared to bit-rate, 24/48 will sound better than 16/192)


I was talking like an average user. All these bit-rate stuffs are not apparent to average user. And then some people will consider a certain bit-rate to be "quality audio" and some people will agree another bit-rate to be "quality audio."

But back on track, uninstalling THX gives you better control over the analog output of this NP81x0 series laptop.

 

If you implies a software solution then the answer is a affirmed NO.

 

Doesn't disabling the THX disable the subwoofer?

 

I have output though the 1/8 in jack to a stereo, and plugged headphones into that and it solved the prob.

 

Then it's just a sucky amplifier with poor frequency response on the headphone jack. If the analog sound output however is good enough to be solved with an external system, then you need a headset with it's own amplifier or keep looking for a software solution that can boost the gain of the bass frequencies through the headphone jack to your liking.

You can build an an Altoids Tin amp or get a commercial model that should be cheap too.

How to Build the CMoy Pocket Amplifier

I haven't use the headphone jack very much on mine. Whenever I get the chance to listen to some songs that I know have a bass section that I can easily recognize which is good or bad, I'll report back.

 

$6.25 - FiiO E3 3.5mm Earphone Volume Booster Power Amplifier (Black) - AV Equipment

This seems to have good reviews and it's only $6 with free shipping.

There is a more expensive unit that charges via USB.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/fiio-e5-3-5mm-earphone-volume-booster-power-amplifier-black-18350

 

I built one of those, it works great, and it is fun to try new opamp ics... you can even get them for free from TI.

 

In the end, after uninstalling THX and un/reinstall of the realtek driver the headphone sound is not great, but livable.

An external amp is not really an option for me, but if anyone else tries one, please report back.

Thanks for all the help, folks.